Last week I sat down with Crystal Choi, the lead singer of Phoebe Rings. The band is fresh off the release of their stunning debut album Aseurai. I got the inside scoop on what the creative process on this project was, as well as what to expect from their opening set while they open for The Beths on their North American tour.
Phoebe Ring started off as a solo project. How did bringing the other members come about as contributing songwriters this time around?
“It has always been a little scheme of mine to have everyone involved in writing altogether, rather than it being a solo project. I started off as a solo project not because I wanted to be a solo project. My plan was to always have the band involved, but it’s a bit of an ask to start a band and go, ‘everyone wrote a song,’ so I started off with some of my stuff. I knew that everyone has their own solo projects and I love all of their songs, so I slowly got one of them to write their own songs.”
For this project with the songwriting, was it more collaborative or did it start individually and then you all brought them in together into the studio?
“In the songwriting process, everyone will try to complete a demo of theirs. Sometimes, it would be fully fleshed out as the whole arrangement, or it would sometimes be simple chords and voice, but still it’ll be a complete song. Then we brought it together and refined it. We refined it as a band.
Was there any difference in the creative process with this record than with the EP?
“The arrangement process was very collaborative. We had our Sunday sessions, where every Sunday for about three to four months, we went into our guitarist Simeon’s studio and would be adding layers to everyone’s songs. Whether it’s bass or everyone jumping up, hopping on one of the synths and making noises. The EP mostly, the demos were very complete. Everyone just recorded their parts on their own. It was done in a very “COVID style”, in their own studios, hand in their own stems. The LP arrangement process, everyone was there creating parts. The songwriter of one of the songs would go, ‘oh, maybe this is not it. Can we try something else?’ That was very collaborative.”
The title track and the opening track of the record is in your native language. What was the decision behind that?
“I consider myself quite half when it comes to speaking language or cultural identity. Sometimes when I write, I tend to have melody come first. When I was writing this melody, it seemed to flow much better in the Korean syllables. Also, it was influenced by a song called the ‘Fairy of Shampoo,’ which is a Korean city pop song. The syllables flowed much better in Korean, so I decided to go for it. Also, it was around the time my grandmother passed away, so I ended up writing about her and because she’s Korean as well. It seemed to match the best.”
It’s such a beautiful way to open up the record. There’s a lot of themes of holding on and also letting go. The last track, “Good Night,” bookends that as well.
“Good Night” was written not too long after “Aseurai.” It’s written by our guitarist, Simeon. They were imagining going to sleep with a cat. It’s a nice way to close the day, but it also was a nice way to close the album because they always had that song in mind to close off the album. I think it worked out quite beautifully.”
I read that you use a lot of astronomical language to describe your work. How did that all come about?
“Phoebe Rings is the ring of Saturn, so we’ve always had a bit of a starry, spacey kind of aesthetic to our band. For example, the song “Drifting” is about drifting away in space. It’s a very convenient metaphor. When you have this space theme, it’s much more open and it gives you space for imagination and space for being a little lost and you can create anything you want. I’ve always liked that.”
I love that and the album cover. What was the inspiration behind that?”
“We are big fans of having illustrations as cover art. We always wanted to have an original illustration to be a cover. We were searching for artists who had their own unique style. Because our music is quite soft, we were also looking for someone who had softer lines and more pastel colors. I think it might have been done with coloring pencil, but it also had little elements of our album as well. It has a Mandarin tree, which is one of the tracks on our album, and it has the rings of Saturn, which represents us. It also had four bunnies.”
It’s your first night of tour and you’re opening for the Beths. How does that feel to be on the road with an artist like them after having one album out? That’s pretty huge.
“The Beths are really good friends of ours. We have opened for them in the past. Our second ever show after our debut was opening for them in Auckland and we were on tour with them in Australia as well. We’re quite used to playing with them, but not to the scale. We are very stoked. I’ve never been to the States. It’s my first time. Seeing them after like 24 hours of traveling was a very surreal experience.”
What are you looking forward to most about playing the States for the first time?
“I’ve never been on a tour bus before either, so I have heard very good things about the tour bus life. The fact that you don’t really have to worry about driving or going to the airport and you can just hop on the bus. This city is really beautiful. I really love it, but I also understand that the United States is really humongous. Coming from a smaller country, I’m looking forward to going to different states and experiencing the change of scenery and the change of landscape, the people and the food.
Do you have a song in particular from the new record that you’re excited to play the most while you’re out on the road?
“I am excited to play “Blue Butterfly.” We haven’t really played that that much, being a more stripped back song. So I don’t know how many times we will be playing that also because it’s a softer song and we’ve got slightly shorter sets, but I’m sure we will play it at least a couple of times. The rest of the album, we have played quite a lot throughout this year, so also excited to keep playing those too.”
I also read that the band is currently working on their next album already.
“At the moment we already have some demos that we have rehearsed and we like them. We’ll be spending probably January and February refining them and hopefully recording them. We can’t wait to do this because the Aseurai album took us a while to get out. We were hoping to get it out sooner than this year, but we ended up re-releasing the ep so there was a little bit of a wait. We can’t wait to write new songs, release them and start performing new songs as well.”
